torplanner
Active Member
Hard to market "mediocre" or "I mean, it's fine"
Presenting: mediocre apartment living.Hard to market "mediocre" or "I mean, it's fine"
Empire from my experience uses extremely cheap finishes both in their high rise and low rise products.Nice to see that this posh swanky place is getting proper posh swanky appliances.
When I first visited a unit at Eau du Soleil, I was shocked to see the cheapest Whirlpool appliances installed by the builder. Sure, they were 'stainless', but only if your idea of stainless is 20% of the surface area finished in the cheapest black plastic:
View attachment 520399
And sure, the dishwasher washed dishes, but only if you didn't mind evacuating the apartment any time it did, because the noise level was unbearable. And yes, the countertop was definitely made from the cheap MDF of the Home Depot variety.
And sure, Eau du Soleil is not a swanky posh condo in the middle of Fashion District, but that sure as heck didn't stop Empire from marketing it as 'luxury waterfront living'. And they sure did charge luxury prices for it. Eau du Soleil went onto market at the same-ish time as, for example, Westlake Encore across the road, but Empire charged about 1.5X higher prices for their 'luxury' Eau du Soleil apartments. And for comparison, Westlake Encore ended up with GE Profile Series appliances (i.e. top-of-the-line at GE). And the countertops at Westlake were quartz.
Anyway, the point of my rant was that I'm glad the builder here treats their customers with respect when they market their project as 'luxury'.
Which also reminds me: I really ought to write up a review of Eau du Soleil in the real estate thread.
I say this as someone who hates real estate agents, but I don't think it's overused. I think that we've become desensitized to it in the Toronto market, and maybe we expect luxury to be more exclusive, but relative to so many other places in/out of Canada many of the new units provide excellent standards of living."Luxury"... what an overused word in the real estate market at the moment.
This is amusing, but no, I was not!Was Alex at the Toronto Star for a job interview?